Steve Crampton

Steve Crampton, a Religious Right activist who is running for a seat on the Mississippi Supreme Court , said last month that the U.S. is at risk of becoming a “slave nation” if attacks on “religious freedom” and the “rule of law” continue. He in particular praised the Alabama Supreme Court’s resistance to the U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down gay marriage bans.

Crampton told Cleveland Right to Life’s Molly Smith that the federal government is “running roughshod over states and their rights” and that “it’s essential, if we’re going to preserve our liberties as our founders intended, that states reassert themselves.”

“One of the seminal issues, I believe, in our day, in our state of Mississippi as elsewhere, is how far does the federal government go constitutionally in basically ordering the states around,” he said. “And I think the big example that we have, maybe the most glaring one nationally right now, is what’s going on in Alabama, where the state Supreme Court has issued very fine opinions and very studied analyses of the issue of same-sex marriage and whether the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Obergefell opinion is actually binding on a state that was not a party to that lawsuit and that had, as Mississippi has, its own state marriage amendment that unequivocally protects marriage as between one man and one woman.”

“So, long and short of it is,” he continued, “all of our freedoms, I think, today are grave risk, in particular religious freedom. I believe it is under attack as never before in our nation’s history. And because religious freedom is the first freedom, it’s foundational, if it goes, everything goes. So it’s a time when either we stand up or we shut up and become almost a slave nation. Because the rule of law is at grave risk.”

On his radio program yesterday, Bryan Fischer interviewed right-wing activist and attorney Steve Crampton about the Supreme Court decision striking down a Texas law aimed at limiting access to legal abortion under the guise of protecting the health of women.

Fischer and Crampton, who is currently running for a seat on the Mississippi Supreme Court, mocked the idea that having to travel hundreds of miles and spend hundreds of dollars to obtain an abortion because unnecessary requirements had shut down dozens of women's health clinics in Texas created an "undue burden" upon women, saying that nobody is entitled to have medical care located nearby.

Fischer absurdly likened this situation to people with cancer who incur significant expenses and travel requirements in order to obtain treatment at renowned hospitals like the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota or the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

"Nobody says that is an undue burden and therefore we are going to require every community to have a MD Anderson clinic," Fischer said, "and we're going to require every state to have a Mayo Clinic."

"I think you're exactly right," Crampton replied. "Where it is written that we have a right to access a hospital or, in this case, a specialty kind of thing, within X number of miles of our home? I don't think that's in my version of the Constitution."

Back when he worked for Liberty Counsel, Crampton was a frequent co-host of the organization's "Faith and Freedom" radio program, where he once shared his view that "the life of the average homosexual is not controlled by reason" but is rather driven by a perverted lust and passion that has "overwhelmed them."

He also warned before the Supreme Court struck down key parts of the Defense of Marriage Act that such a decision would mean that gays "will eradicate us and they will not stop until the homosexual totalitarian view of the world is forcefully imposed on every American."

And he declared that gay rights activists "abhor freedom" and "will basically stop at almost nothing in order to accomplish their goals."

He even asserted that gay rights activism is "destroying America" and "the most totalitarian kind of philosophy that is afoot in America today."

And he once insisted that "society itself is on the verge of total collapse if we give up what marriage really means."

Glenn Beck has some advice for Target: "A guy is a guy and a girl is girl. And that’s all there is to it."

Burt Prelutsky declares that "it doesn’t say much about all those black Americans who take to the streets every time a black criminal is killed by a cop doing his job, but they never seem to notice or to give a damn that 501 black babies are aborted for every thousand who are allowed to live."

Steve Crampton warns about the effort to strike down Mississippi's law banning adoptions by same-sex couples: "These are desperate times; they call for desperate measures. We want to stay within the law and urge others, of course, to remain non-violent in their activism – but I think it is a time for right-thinking, God-fearing Americans to stand up and speak out against the tyranny of the judiciary."

Laurie Higgins tells parents that they must demand "that their young children not be exposed to any material or activities that embody Leftist assumptions about homosexuality or gender confusion."

Finally, it is rather alarming to learn that Mat Staver and Matt Barber apparently agree with Bryan Fischer's absurd theory about the First Amendment.

A few weeks ago, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was speaking to students at the University of Minnesota Law School when she made the rather straightforward observation that if 6th Circuit Court of Appeals follows other recent court decisions and strikes down gay marriage bans in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee, then the prospects of the Supreme Court taking up the issue of marriage equality would be less likely in the near term.

The reasoning behind this statement is that if appellate courts consistently strike down such bans, then the Supreme Court will not need to get involved right away whereas, if the 6th Circuit were to uphold such bans, that would create a conflict among recent appellate rulings and so, as Ginsburg said, "there will be some urgency" for the Supreme Court to take up with issue in order to address those conflicting rulings.

There is nothing controversial or improper about this obvious observation, but anti-gay Religious Right groups have seized upon it to launch a campaign demanding that Ginsburg recuse herself from any Supreme Court case involving the issue of marriage equality on the grounds that she has violated the Judicial Code of Conduct by "making public comment on the merits of a pending or impending action."

“In casting a vote publicly before the case is even heard, Justice Ginsburg has violated the Judicial Code of Conduct,” said Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel. “It is now her duty to recuse herself from cases involving same-sex marriage.”

According to Canon 2 of the Judicial Code of Conduct, “A judicial employee should not lend the prestige of the office to advance or to appear to advance the private interests of others.”

Canon 3(D) declares, “A judicial employee should avoid making public comment on the merits of a pending or impending action.”

“Justice Ginsburg’s comments implied that the merits of the state constitutional amendments defining marriage as one man and one woman were such that the Supreme Court would have to overturn them with haste, if upheld by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals,” said Staver. “This is an inappropriate comment for any judicial employee, much less a Supreme Court Justice!”

The call has since been echoed by the Foundation for Moral Law, Faith 2 Action, and the American Family Association, where Bryan Fischer and former Liberty Counsel attorney Steve Crampton recently discussed the need for right-wing activists to "beat on our pots" in order to create so much political pressure on Ginsburg and Justice Elena Kagan that they have no choice but to recuse themselves from any such cases.

In fact, just yesterday, Fischer wrote a column arguing that Ginsburg and Kagan would be "committing a federal crime" if they did not recuse themselves:

The Supreme Court will, perhaps even in this session, take up the issue of sodomy-based marriage. If it does, justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan will have an obligation to step off the bench for those cases on the grounds that their impartiality has been severely compromised.

Both have performed sodomy-based “wedding” ceremonies. Kagan performed her first one on September 22 of this year, and Ginsburg has done the deed multiple times, including at least one in the Supreme Court building itself. Thus they have clearly tipped their hand by their actions as well as their words. They have publicly demonstrated that their minds are already made up on the issue. It is inconceivable that either of them now would vote against the “marriages” they themselves have solemnized. They would stand self-condemned.

...

[T]he necessity for Kagan and Ginsburg to recuse is not just a matter of fairness or rightness. It’s also a matter of law. They have a statutory obligation to recuse. If they refuse to step off the bench when and if marriage cases come before them, they would be breaking federal law. They would be, from a strictly legal standpoint, committing a federal crime. Their sacred responsibility is to uphold the law, not break it.

So it was with great interest that we read this article in The Washington Times yesterday reporting on remarks made by Justice Antonin Scalia at Colorado Christian University in which he stated that the separation of church and state is "utterly absurd" and the idea that the government must remain neutral on the issue of religion is "just a lie":

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said Wednesday that secularists are wrong when they argue the Constitution requires religious references to be banished from the public square.

Justice Scalia, part of the court’s conservative wing, was preaching to the choir when he told the audience at Colorado Christian University that a battle is underway over whether to allow religion in public life, from referencing God in the Pledge of Allegiance to holding prayers before city hall meetings.

“I think the main fight is to dissuade Americans from what the secularists are trying to persuade them to be true: that the separation of church and state means that the government cannot favor religion over nonreligion,” Justice Scalia said.

“That’s a possible way to run a political system. The Europeans run it that way,” Justice Scalia said. “And if the American people want to do it, I suppose they can enact that by statute. But to say that’s what the Constitution requires is utterly absurd.”

...

“We do him [God] honor in our pledge of allegiance, in all our public ceremonies,” Justice Scalia said. “There’s nothing wrong with that. It is in the best of American traditions, and don’t let anybody tell you otherwise. I think we have to fight that tendency of the secularists to impose it on all of us through the Constitution.”

The biggest danger lies with judges who interpret the Constitution as a malleable document that changes with the times, he said.

“Our [the court‘s] latest take on the subject, which is quite different from previous takes, is that the state must be neutral, not only between religions, but between religion and nonreligion,” Justice Scalia said. “That’s just a lie. Where do you get the notion that this is all unconstitutional? You can only believe that if you believe in a morphing Constitution.”

Given that Scalia was very clearly "making public comment" in a way that directly relates to a whole host of church-state separation questions that could potentially come before the Supreme Court at any time, we trust that these Religious Right groups will now demand that he recuse himself from any such cases as well, right?

Matt Barber and Steve Crampton began today's "Faith and Freedom" radio broadcast by attacking Rep. Nancy Pelosi for accepting the Margaret Sanger Award from Planned Parenthood last month, but the discussion quickly got sidetracked into criticism of efforts to outlaw the use of "ex-gay" reparative therapy on minors, with Crampton comparing it to efforts by mental health professionals to promote eugenics in the early 1900s in order to sterilize and eliminate "undesirables":

And the side to the whole eugenics movement that I think still underlies the abortion industry in America is that it was pioneered by and championed by the so-called experts.

In 1909, California adopted laws forcing sterilization of those they deemed unfit. It took some six decades before they stopped the practice, during which time sixty thousand Americans were sterilized involuntarily by the experts. We're talking the California Psychiatric Association, in particular.

Interestingly enough, here we are today at Liberty Counsel litigating against the California psychiatrists and the American Psychiatric Association that so many folks hold in high regard and now they're touting theories about homosexuality rather than eugenics, but the theories are equally devoid of any kind of scientific basis.

And what I want to say to our listeners is beware the experts. So often, it is the experts that get us into the deep, deep weeds and the darkest places of the experience of humanity and so blindly following them can get us into horrific places.

With the Senate expected to vote on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act before Thanksgiving, here’s a look at Right Wing Watch’s collection of recent – and classic – claims from the Religious Right about ENDA. Because ENDA is common sense legislation that would make it illegal to fire, refuse to hire, or refuse to promote employees because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, the Right cannot gain much traction by opposing ENDA on its merits. Instead, resorting to fear-mongering and lies, they contend that ENDA will lead to everything from the end of religious freedom to sexual assault and death. As the vote approaches, senators will have to choose whether they will cast their lot with anti-gay extremists or with common sense.

Matt Barber of Liberty Counsel appeared on Sandy Rios In The Morning, where he told guest host Wendy Wright that hate crimes laws and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act will be used to protect pedophiles:

“When you have laws like ENDA, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, being pushed, hate crimes legislation, that are as you point out so well Wendy, that are very vague in their definition of what is sexual orientation, we will arrive at the point where you know these people who define their sexual orientation by a sexual attraction to children want to be lumped in among those who cannot be discriminated against based upon their sexual orientation.”

Speaking about a Senate hearing on ENDA, Liberty Counsel’s “Faith and Freedom” radio host Steve Crampton marveled that a transgender person was actually allowed to testify on behalf of the legislation and complained that ENDA is not about “equal rights” but rather “special rights” for gays and cross-dressers.

Crampton stated that if ENDA passed, he could come into work – “God forbid,” he said – wearing a dress and would be allowed to use the women’s restroom. “In years past,” Crampton said, “we had another word for this: it’s called insanity.”

While speaking on Today’s Issues, the Texas congressman said the anti-discrimination legislation is “part of this administration’s ongoing war on religion, on particularly Judeo-Christian values,” and asserted that Muslims would also oppose the bill as well. However, Gohmert lamented the growth of Christian and Jewish denominations and organizations that affirm gays and lesbians and defend their rights, saying that they do so “despite the plumbing that God created.”

Liberty Counsel head Mat Staver in a Freedom’s Call radio alert said that the ENDA bill is a “farce” that will “harm women and children.” How? Because employers “will be forced to hire cross-dressers,” whom Staver believes will go on to molest and assault kids.

Mission America’s Linda Harvey stated her belief that schools, and employers in general, should have the right to fire LGBT personnel and urged them to exercise that right. She said that the only person to blame for getting fired is the LGBT employee who refuses to accept their employer’s “high moral standards” and “insist[s] on displaying these lifestyles to everyone and forcing their acceptance.” She said that “no one needs to be involved in homosexuality” and that the “homosexual lifestyle” is incompatible with being “an excellent employee” as it “shows a disrespect” to others.

“Like a B-grade 1950’s horror-movie, ENDA is coming back from the dead,” warned Family Research Council President Tony Perkins in a recent mailing. Perkins said President Obama is working with the “totalitarian homosexual lobby” to sneak ENDA into law, and if that happens, “Our freedom of religion will be destroyed.”

Andrea Lafferty of the Traditional Values Coalition used the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, in order to bolster her campaign against ENDA. While speaking to Janet Mefferd about the Orange County, Florida, school system’s new non-discrimination policy that is similar to ENDA, Lafferty said that just as parents are upset about the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting and are concerned about keeping their children safe, they should also be worried about ENDA’s “devastating effects” as schools will have “people with some real issues playing out their personal problems in the classroom.”

Lafferty maintained that ENDA is part of the left’s “open season” on Christians on behalf of “fringe minorities and people that are truly sick.” She warned that Chick-fil-A restaurants may soon be “forced” to hire “weirdos” seeking to undermine Christian businesses, warning that transgender people are committing “the ultimate act of self-hatred” and need “special medical treatment” rather than job protections.

American Family Association spokesman Bryan Fischer warned in a blog post that “ENDA would represent the return of Jim Crow laws.” On his radio program Focal Point, Fischer warned that if ENDA is signed into law businesses will be faced with a barrage of “flaming homosexual” job applicants. “The homosexual lobby,” Fischer said, “will send a guy in there wearing stilettos, a dress and dangly earrings” in order to provoke Christian business-owners “not to hire him.”

Liberty Counsel chairman Mat Staver is ratcheting up the rhetoric in opposition to ENDA, even going so far as to say that if passed the legislation may lead to child molestation, sexual assault, and death. Staver told Jim Schneider of VCY America on Crosstalk that ENDA “will put individuals at risk and ultimately result in significant damage and even death of some individuals”:

Staver: “So you can go into these restrooms or changing rooms, if you’re a man, and want to go in and molest, or watch, or sexually assault young girls. So, I mean, the absurdity of this is just beyond understanding how someone could be in favor of it. This will ultimately, in addition to colliding with religious liberty, in addition to forcing a radical agenda on people, this also will put individuals at risk and ultimately result in significant damage and even death of some individuals.”

With the Senate expected to vote on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act before Thanksgiving, here’s a look at Right Wing Watch’s collection of recent – and classic – claims from the Religious Right about ENDA. Because ENDA is common sense legislation that would make it illegal to fire, refuse to hire, or refuse to promote employees because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, the Right cannot gain much traction by opposing ENDA on its merits. Instead, resorting to fear-mongering and lies, they contend that ENDA will lead to everything from the end of religious freedom to sexual assault and death. As the vote approaches, senators will have to choose whether they will cast their lot with anti-gay extremists or with common sense.

Matt Barber of Liberty Counsel appeared on Sandy Rios In The Morning, where he told guest host Wendy Wright that hate crimes laws and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act will be used to protect pedophiles:

“When you have laws like ENDA, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, being pushed, hate crimes legislation, that are as you point out so well Wendy, that are very vague in their definition of what is sexual orientation, we will arrive at the point where you know these people who define their sexual orientation by a sexual attraction to children want to be lumped in among those who cannot be discriminated against based upon their sexual orientation.”

Speaking about a Senate hearing on ENDA, Liberty Counsel’s “Faith and Freedom” radio host Steve Crampton marveled that a transgender person was actually allowed to testify on behalf of the legislation and complained that ENDA is not about “equal rights” but rather “special rights” for gays and cross-dressers.

Crampton stated that if ENDA passed, he could come into work – “God forbid,” he said – wearing a dress and would be allowed to use the women’s restroom. “In years past,” Crampton said, “we had another word for this: it’s called insanity.”

While speaking on Today’s Issues, the Texas congressman said the anti-discrimination legislation is “part of this administration’s ongoing war on religion, on particularly Judeo-Christian values,” and asserted that Muslims would also oppose the bill as well. However, Gohmert lamented the growth of Christian and Jewish denominations and organizations that affirm gays and lesbians and defend their rights, saying that they do so “despite the plumbing that God created.”

Liberty Counsel head Mat Staver in a Freedom’s Call radio alert said that the ENDA bill is a “farce” that will “harm women and children.” How? Because employers “will be forced to hire cross-dressers,” whom Staver believes will go on to molest and assault kids.

Mission America’s Linda Harvey stated her belief that schools, and employers in general, should have the right to fire LGBT personnel and urged them to exercise that right. She said that the only person to blame for getting fired is the LGBT employee who refuses to accept their employer’s “high moral standards” and “insist[s] on displaying these lifestyles to everyone and forcing their acceptance.” She said that “no one needs to be involved in homosexuality” and that the “homosexual lifestyle” is incompatible with being “an excellent employee” as it “shows a disrespect” to others.

“Like a B-grade 1950’s horror-movie, ENDA is coming back from the dead,” warned Family Research Council President Tony Perkins in a recent mailing. Perkins said President Obama is working with the “totalitarian homosexual lobby” to sneak ENDA into law, and if that happens, “Our freedom of religion will be destroyed.”

Andrea Lafferty of the Traditional Values Coalition used the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, in order to bolster her campaign against ENDA. While speaking to Janet Mefferd about the Orange County, Florida, school system’s new non-discrimination policy that is similar to ENDA, Lafferty said that just as parents are upset about the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting and are concerned about keeping their children safe, they should also be worried about ENDA’s “devastating effects” as schools will have “people with some real issues playing out their personal problems in the classroom.”

Lafferty maintained that ENDA is part of the left’s “open season” on Christians on behalf of “fringe minorities and people that are truly sick.” She warned that Chick-fil-A restaurants may soon be “forced” to hire “weirdos” seeking to undermine Christian businesses, warning that transgender people are committing “the ultimate act of self-hatred” and need “special medical treatment” rather than job protections.

American Family Association spokesman Bryan Fischer warned in a blog post that “ENDA would represent the return of Jim Crow laws.” On his radio program Focal Point, Fischer warned that if ENDA is signed into law businesses will be faced with a barrage of “flaming homosexual” job applicants. “The homosexual lobby,” Fischer said, “will send a guy in there wearing stilettos, a dress and dangly earrings” in order to provoke Christian business-owners “not to hire him.”

Liberty Counsel chairman Mat Staver is ratcheting up the rhetoric in opposition to ENDA, even going so far as to say that if passed the legislation may lead to child molestation, sexual assault, and death. Staver told Jim Schneider of VCY America on Crosstalk that ENDA “will put individuals at risk and ultimately result in significant damage and even death of some individuals”:

Staver: “So you can go into these restrooms or changing rooms, if you’re a man, and want to go in and molest, or watch, or sexually assault young girls. So, I mean, the absurdity of this is just beyond understanding how someone could be in favor of it. This will ultimately, in addition to colliding with religious liberty, in addition to forcing a radical agenda on people, this also will put individuals at risk and ultimately result in significant damage and even death of some individuals.”

The government may be shut down, but Congress is still on the job, and we need to show them that they need to get back to work not only on the budget but on all of the urgent issues that we care about.

First introduced in 1994, ENDA has been introduced in every subsequent session of Congress except one, including its introduction this April by a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the House and Senate. Advocates in Congress and on the ground believe that the growing momentum surrounding LGBT equality should help ENDA move forward this year.

First introduced in 1994, ENDA has been introduced in every subsequent session of Congress except one, including its introduction this April by a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the House and Senate. Advocates in Congress and on the ground believe that the growing momentum surrounding LGBT equality should help ENDA move forward this year.

Earlier this year, the grounds crew for the St. Louis Cardinals began drawing a number "6" along with a cross on the pitcher's mound before home games in honor of former Cardinals star Stan Musial, who passed away in January. When the team's general manager learned about the practice, he asked the grounds crew to stop doing it, saying that it is "not club policy to be putting religious symbols on the playing field or throughout the ballpark."

And that, of course, has outraged Matt Barber and Steve Crampton, who apparently feel that not having a cross etched on the pitcher's mound is some sort of attack on their religious freedom, as Crampton declared that God is now "the dirtiest word that can be spoken in public" while asserting that ending the practice is "an embarrassment for our nation" and an insult to the God-fearing people of St. Louis.

"We are going to find ourselves," Crampton warned, "in grave danger. And so our being embarrassed by a cross on a pitcher's mound is shameful and you can bet that the Creator of Heaven and Earth is not turning a blind eye to what is going on in America today":

Generally when the Religious Right likens its own efforts to William Wilberforce's crusade to end slavery, they do so when discussing the topicofabortion, but apparently it applies to their fight against marriage equality as well.

In the wake of the Supreme Court's rulings on DOMA and Prop 8, Rep. Tim Huelskamp has introduced a constitutional amendment seeking to ban gay marriage and while Matt Barber and Steve Crampton both realize has no chance of passing, they are going to continue to push for it and stick with it just like Wilberforce did because eventually Christians will realize that their "religious freedom [is] being crushed by the homosexualist juggernaut":

A few weeks ago, an anti-gay activist was attacked while protesting a gay pride festival in Seattle by a straight man with a long criminal record and Matt Barber and Steve Crampton are not the least bit surprised because, well, what else can you expect from those who have been given over to a "reprobate mind."

Crampton and Barber warned that these sorts of attacks on anti-gay Christians will only increase in the months and years ahead because, as Crampton explained, "the life of the average homosexual is not controlled by reason" but a perverted lust and passion that has "overwhelmed them." And thus, when you couple that "a lack of self-control" with "the taste of blood," you have a recipe for further bloodletting.

Barber agreed, declaring that gays "define their entire identity based up aberrant sexual behaviors and sexual temptations and acting on those temptations" and so, as Scripture proclaims, they are eventually consumed by this "lust-filled, sex-centric, perversion-centric lifestyle" and ultimately driven by a "dark soul" to commit this sort of violent behavior:

On today's "Faith and Freedom" radio program, Matt Barber and Steve Crampton were particularly disturbed by the recent incident in Texas where some protestors facetiously chanted "Hail Satan" at a rally during the special legislative session called to pass the state's restrictive abortion bill.

While Barber saw it as evidence that "the pro-aborts are losing their minds," Crampton felt that it accurately reflected the contrast between the two sides in this legal battle where "you have the demons from the escorts and the pro-abortion side and angels from the pro-lifers."

And that made perfect sense to Barber, because "the first pro-choicer ... was Satan himself":

With the Employment Non-Discrimination Act scheduled for a Senate committee vote this week, here’s a look at Right Wing Watch’s collection of recent – and classic – claims from the Religious Right about ENDA. Because ENDA is common-sense civil rights legislation that would expand federal employment protections against discrimination to include sexual orientation and gender identity, the Right cannot gain much traction by opposing ENDA on its merits. Instead, resorting to fear-mongering and lies, they contend that ENDA will lead to everything from the end of religious freedom to sexual assault and death.

Here are highlights of Right Wing Watch’s reporting on right-wing opposition to ENDA:

“Like a B-grade 1950’s horror-movie, ENDA is coming back from the dead,” warned Family Research Council President Tony Perkins in a recent mailing. Perkins said President Obama is working with the “totalitarian homosexual lobby” to sneak ENDA into law, and if that happens, “Our freedom of religion will be destroyed.”

Speaking about a Senate hearing on ENDA, Liberty Counsel’s “Faith and Freedom” radio host Steve Crampton marveled that a transgender person was actually allowed to testify on behalf of the legislation and complained that ENDA is not about “equal rights” but rather “special rights” for gays and cross-dressers.

Crampton stated that if ENDA passed, he could come into work – “God forbid,” he said – wearing a dress and would be allowed to use the women’s restroom. “In years past,” Crampton said, “we had another word for this: it’s called insanity.”

Andrea Lafferty of the Traditional Values Coalition used the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, in order to bolster her campaign against ENDA. While speaking to Janet Mefferd about the Orange County, Florida, school system’s new non-discrimination policy that is similar to ENDA, Lafferty said that just as parents are upset about the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting and are concerned about keeping their children safe, they should also be worried about ENDA’s “devastating effects” as schools will have “people with some real issues playing out their personal problems in the classroom.”

Lafferty maintained that ENDA is part of the left’s “open season” on Christians on behalf of “fringe minorities and people that are truly sick.” She warned that Chick-fil-A restaurants may soon be “forced” to hire “weirdos” seeking to undermine Christian businesses, warning that transgender people are committing “the ultimate act of self-hatred” and need “special medical treatment” rather than job protections.

American Family Association spokesman Bryan Fischer warned in a blog post that “ENDA would represent the return of Jim Crow laws.” On his radio program Focal Point, Fischer warned that if ENDA is signed into law businesses will be faced with a barrage of “flaming homosexual” job applicants. “The homosexual lobby,” Fischer said, “will send a guy in there wearing stilettos, a dress and dangly earrings” in order to provoke Christian business-owners “not to hire him.”

1. Mat Staver: ENDA Will Result in the 'Death of Some Individuals' (June 2012)

Liberty Counsel chairman Mat Staver is ratcheting up the rhetoric in opposition to ENDA, even going so far as to say that if passed the legislation may lead to child molestation, sexual assault, and death. Staver told Jim Schneider of VCY America on Crosstalk that ENDA “will put individuals at risk and ultimately result in significant damage and even death of some individuals”:

Staver: So you can go into these restrooms or changing rooms, if you’re a man, and want to go in and molest, or watch, or sexually assault young girls. So, I mean, the absurdity of this is just beyond understanding how someone could be in favor of it. This will ultimately, in addition to colliding with religious liberty, in addition to forcing a radical agenda on people, this also will put individuals at risk and ultimately result in significant damage and even death of some individuals.

On a recent "Faith and Freedom" radio program, Matt Barber and Steve Crampton discussed the looming Supreme Court hearing over the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act during which they declared that if the Court strikes it down, "it is high time the people rise up against the tyranny of the judiciary."

"If the judges foist this upon us, we need to resist," proclaimed Crampton, which prompted Barber to respond that Christians will have seriously consider civil disobedience, saying "in the spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr, it may be the time for peaceful civil disobedience when it comes to the fundamental deconstruction of our most fundamental institutions":

The other day, Matt Barber and Steve Crampton of Liberty Counsel were discussing the Supreme Court's decision to hear arguments on Proposition 8 later this year, when Crampton warned that any decision to strike it down would put society "on the verge of total collapse."

The two followed that up with a discussion of the related decision by the court to hear arguments over the Defense of Marriage Act, which both Barber and Crampton discussed in an equally reasonable fashion, with Barber warning that gay marriage will be the sledgehammer that crushes religious liberty in America while Crampton proclaimed that the homosexual agenda "will eradicate us and they will not stop until the homosexual totalitarian view of the world is forcefully imposed on every American":

On today's "Faith and Freedom" radio program, Matt Barber and Steve Crampton discussed the Supreme Court's decision to hear arguments on California's Proposition 8 later this spring, with Crampton warning that the American people need to be made aware of just how important this case will be because "society itself is on the verge of total collapse if we give up what marriage really means":

October 30 is "Mix It Up at Lunch Day" which encourages students to "move out of their comfort zones and connect with someone new over lunch." The point of the effort is to break up cliques and get students to spend time with different groups of people, but because it is a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Religious Right vehemently opposes it, falsely claiming that "it’s just another thinly veiled attempt to promote the homosexual agenda."

Today, Liberty Counsel's Matt Barber and Steve Crampton weighed in to warn about the dangers of "Mix It Up" day ... despite obviously having absolutely no idea what it is actually about, as Crampton bizarrely asserted that it was a day "where boys can wear girls clothes [or] pretend to be homosexual" or even dress up like an uptight, judgmental Christian who tells everyone they are going to Hell in order to "make fun of Christianity by mocking it":